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Council of Europe leads fight against death penalty

Interview (09.10.2003)

Thirty or so organisations in Europe, the United States and Japan have declared 10 October World Day against the Death Penalty. Michel Taube, President of the World Coalition against the Death Penalty, reviews the situation since the First World Congress against the Death Penalty which he organised at the Council of Europe and the European Parliament in June 2001.

Question: How has the issue evolved worldwide over the past two years?

Michel Taube : There have been some positive developments. Some large countries like Turkey have abolished the death penalty. There have been some interesting changes in others which still execute people. In the United States, for instance, the Supreme Court has ruled that a single judge cannot hand down a death sentence. It has also banned the death penalty for mentally disabled people. However, the events of 11 September 2001 have caused some countries in favour of the death penalty to take a tougher stance in the name of the fight against terrorism. Examples include the United States and also some countries which apply a very stringent form of Muslim law. The debate between countries that justify the death sentence in the name of the fight against terrorism and those, such as Europe and Canada, which believe that not even the worst crime warrants it is becoming increasingly political. The greatest victory of the past two years is probably the setting up of the International Criminal Court, whose Statute forbids it to use the death penalty against war criminals or perpetrators of crimes against humanity on trial before it.

Question : 10 October next is World Day against the Death Penalty. Is this a consequence of the Strasbourg congress?

Michel Taube : Yes, this is a step taken by the participants in the Strasbourg congress, who have since set up a World Coalition against the Death Penalty made up of thirty or so Japanese, American and European organisations. It includes NGOs, bar associations, trade unions, local authorities and so on. The coalition has decided to make 10 October of every year World Day against the Death Penalty so that abolitionists can speak out on the same day all over the world. This year 10 October will be marked by fifty or so political pronouncements from the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Mexican and Swiss governments and others, and by local and worldwide initiatives like an Internet petition asking the governments of the 80 countries where the death penalty is still in force to give it up. The petition is on the coalition website http://www.worldcoalition.org/.

Question: How do you view the initiative by George Ryan, former Governor of Illinois, who declared a moratorium on the death penalty in his State not long before his term of office was due to end and since then has been of the opinion that, in order to be heard in the United States, those in favour of abolition should campaign for moratorium?

Michel Taube : The choice is not between abolition or moratorium. In 2002, 22 schemes for abolition of the death penalty were put to the States, and not a single one got through. Resolving on moratorium is tantamount to trusting in the conscience of one individual, the Governor. The real choice in the United States today is to guarantee proper trials. The step forward towards abolition is not so much moratorium as ensuring recourse to good lawyers and judges, and above all media coverage of trials.

Question : How do you see the Council of Europe’s role in the fight against the death penalty?

Michel Taube : The Council of Europe was certainly the first institution to assert that the death penalty must be abolished in a democratic society and a state governed by the rule of law. It worked hard to get the death penalty abolished in eastern Europe very soon after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and to get the European Union to include a very clear provision banning the death penalty in its Charter of Fundamental Rights. Lastly, the Council of Europe has just brought into force Protocol No 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans the use of the death penalty even in wartime.

So the Council really is the leader in this area. It has just proved it again with its Parliamentary Assembly’s debate on 1 October on the abolition of the death penalty in countries holding observer status with the Council of Europe.